THE CMO SOLUTION GUIDE FOR GLOBAL BRAND LEADERS, … · 2020. 4. 13. · The CMO Solution Guide for...

THE CMO SOLUTION GUIDE FOR

GLOBAL BRAND LEADERS, TRANSCENDING THE GEOGRAPHIC DIVIDE

PRESENTED BY

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL BRANDS SHARE SIX MUST-HAVEELEMENTS TO BEING GLOBAL AND LOCAL

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO CONTRIBUTORS:

LEE APPLBAUMGlobal Chief Marketing Officer, The Patron Spirits Company

SUTIN CHAMULITRATVice President, Sales & Marketing,

Vencorex

PHIL CLEMENTCMO, AON Corporation

JULIE LYLECMO, Demandjump

HUBERTUS DEVROYEHead of Marketing and Commercial,

Dow Chemical

KAREN STARNSSVP Global Marketing, Pearson

The CMO Solution Guide for Global Brand Leaders, Transcending the Geographic Divide 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThere used to be a time when a given brand that was based in a given country only had to deal with

the challenges of marketing their brand in that country. Of course those days are long since gone, for

essentially every company today is global in one way or another.

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MARKETING A GLOBAL BRAND AND MARKETING A BRAND, GLOBALLY. So much has changed and continues to change, literally as we

speak. As McKinsey puts it: “No single organizational model is best for all companies handling the realities of rapid growth in emerging markets and round-the-clock global communications.”

There is simply no one-size-fits-all when it comes to marketing

in today’s world, especially for those brands who truly are global,

meaning they not only market in many countries, but they also

have dedicated marketing teams across the globe, too.

Bringing together so many disparate cultures and languages and

delivering a cohesive and consistent brand message can seem

like a herculean challenge. And, in many ways, it is just that.

The last issue may be the most difficult and often wrought with

the most peril. As Harvard Business Review astutely points out:

“Global brands can’t just be imposed on all markets.”

If yours is a global brand or has aspirations to become one, consider:

1. How does your company articulate and create a global brand image and presence across different languages and cultures?

2. How do you deal with the many varying laws and regulations when it comes to things such as email, privacy and data?

3. How does your technology platform not only handle all the different laws and regulations – but also adapt as needed?

4. How do you instill in your internal teams a cohesive culture that connects and transcends geographic and sociological differences?

5. How do you balance marketing competencies to benefit your global team while simultaneously enabling local team’s needs to be met?

6. How do you empower your team around the world to build relationships with customers in different geographic regions/countries?


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (CONT.)

There is no one-size-fits-all marketing and the same is true when it comes to branding. A given brand, including the actual name, can mean one thing in one country and something completely different in another.

The film Pulp Fiction provides a perfect example. There is a scene

in the movie where one character (Vincent) asks his friend (Jules) if

he knows what they call a (McDonald’s) Quarter Pounder with

cheese in Paris?

“ They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese? ” — JULES

“ No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn’t know what the [heck] a

Quarter Pounder is

— VINCENT

“ Then what do they call it?

— JULES

“ They call it a Royale with cheese

— VINCENT

That of course is a very basic example but you get the idea and that is why marketing leaders today have

so many things to consider when going global. This guide will provide answers to all the aforementioned

questions by providing you with key insights from some of today’s brightest and best marketing leaders.


1 CULTURE & TEAMWORK

Global brand leaders have to infuse their team with a cohesive culture that connects and transcends geographic differences. It’s this culture that is the driving force for so many potential successes that the organization can achieve. While many people talk about culture as if it is some fluffy concept, it’s so much more. As a necessary ingredient for a global organization, Great Places to Work noted that it helps to attract the necessary talent that can propel the organization forward on both the local level and on a global scale.

Additionally, a strong culture bolsters a company’s brand, especially through what employees and customers broadcast on social media about how they love where they work and how they love the products or services. A strong culture is also a means of executing the company’s strategy on a global and local level. When there are clear guidelines and a set of shared values, employees will want to follow and emulate those, thereby achieving the strategy that has been set out by leadership. Everyone will also be on the same page, furthering the ability of the strategy to be effective.

Consider the novel approach called Pass It On that Phil Clement, CMO of AON launched to engage 60,000 employees in 120 countries to empower them to support community service and clients. A football was transported around the world to signify connection.

Clement observes, “Our most memorable moments from this campaign were things we could not have engineered or scripted—such as the impromptu Kenyan traditional tribal dance—that honored local culture and triggered powerful emotional connections across AON. The football is universally understood and our local geographies got creative and made this campaign come alive and be deeply symbolic—we built in plenty of room for that to happen.”

CULTURE & TEAMWORK1

Key Ingredients for a Cohesive Global Culture There are some key ingredients that define a cohesive global culture for a marketing organization. These include:

1. A desire to win, where good could always be better, and where aspirations never end.

2. Energy focused on customers, community, and competition.

3. Employees that think like owners by taking personal responsibility for business performance and doing the right thing for the company.

4. A team of doers who are focused on getting it done and taking care of those things that make the company better.

5. An environment where people can be themselves, reach their full potential, and recognize the importance of diversity in team contributions.

6. A passion to go beyond the adequate or the goal and reach for things that take the company to the next level.



The Complexity of Creating a Cohesive, Connected Global Culture The larger the organization, the more complexity goes into connecting the organization’s culture. Hubertus Devroye, Head of Marketing and Commercial at Dow Chemical, paints a picture of just how imposing a prospect this can be for some companies.

He explains, “We deal with over 130 different countries in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and India. There is no one-size-fits-all for us. We often start with a centrally governed approach to maintain consistency and then work out from there, dialing in local nuances as we go. We are a very “glocal” company so it’s important to address market and country differences in our overall cultural approach.”

“Too often regional and global leaders assume that the regional office or global office is the single location where all expertise resides, and from which original work and policies must emanate. This is

not only shortsighted, but it also underestimates the power that cross-market communication, collaboration, and best practice sharing can provide for global teams and brands. — JULIE LYLE, CMO, Demandjump

Local empowerment is part of a global company’s approach because it can help drive the overall cultural values down through the entire organization.

As Lyle noted, communication is one of the driving forces that can galvanize this cohesive, connected global

culture for an organization. While Lyle takes a hands-on role to remain current on regulatory requirements, she

explained, “My local teams are better-versed and fully competent to manage the requirements in their own

regulated markets. They have immediate access to expert local legal counsel that specialize in these issues and

that are often under contract (or in-house) to ensure compliance.”

For Phil Clement, that communication has to become a drumbeat in the organization that never stops.

Going beyond town hall meetings, webcasts, and internal blogging, Clement said communication has

to be even more expansive. He often speaks externally so that, when there is some type of coverage, it

is shared internally so that the team understands the marketing team’s vision and how it interacts with

other organizations outside of AON.

He does acknowledge the challenges of creating a cohesive culture via communication due to the vast

territory that the company has to cover to disseminate its messages to the entire team.



Clement says, “A lot of the messages just don’t get through. No matter how

hard you work, a lot of the nuances don’t transmit across the conference call or

webcast because these are things you have to live every day when it’s a brand

or a marketing campaign. Therefore, it’s important to get out there too and

spend time with people in the countries.” Beyond spending time with the team,

Clement also notes that they fly people in to headquarters to participate in

summits. They also have book club discussions, which can be an effective way

to access some of the important ideas that are happening in marketing and tie

that to the notion of creating a common culture around the company’s common initiatives.

Before effective communication and a cohesive organizational culture comes the need to smooth out

geographical cultural differences. This was the experience that Sutin Chamulitrat, Vice President, Global

Marketing and Sales for Vencorex, the industrial chemical producer, being Thai and working in France for

the global organization.

He made it clear that there are other dimensions to bring a global team together into a cohesive unit.

The company gets groups from around the globe together at least once a year so that they can learn

from each other in a face-to-face environment. From there, strategy is formulated and action plans were

developed then deployed globally. The team is one team and they learn and support each other.

Connect on a Global Basis for Team Unity Global brand leaders must develop a range of strategies in order to connect the team globally and develop a united group. It can be challenging when a company begins to expand globally and enter new markets that involve more nationalities and geographic cultures. This involves bringing in more varied team members that come from different backgrounds and values system.

Karen Starns, CMO, Pearson knows about global team unity. With a team of 1,500 marketers around the world, Starns has worked to align them in a rhythm of the business around a single goal.

“Marketing exists to drive demand to scale and driving teams to be laser focused on one goal around the world,”

shared Starns. “We are really transitioning from being activity focused to being business focused and how we are accountable to ROI

— KAREN STARNS, SVP Global Marekting, Pearson

To tap into deep areas of expertise, Pearson has created global centers of excellence to foster global unity while allowing for local diversity and decision making.



Local marketers report into country managers and dotted line into the CMO office to further emphasize local empowerment with a global underpinning. As Devroye notes, “It’s a balancing act as well as a question of trust and learning. That means having to experiment and try certain things to get to a place that brings everyone together. You can’t think it’s just centralized or decentralized because it might be that some aspects are centralized while others are not. When I centralize the “how” we do things and decentralize the “what” or the “content”, I get uniform data across the globe. This data driven approach then allows me to make well thought through investment decisions related to markets and strategic priorities.”

Distribute on a Local Level and Find Relevance on a Global Scale A significant part of becoming globally cohesive still involves the local markets. Lyle of DemandJump puts considerable effort into putting global responsibilities on the local level. She explains, “This drives collaboration, accelerates best practice sharing, global training, and succession planning, and generally results in better global/local market strategy and cost effective implementation.” Clement of AON takes a similar approach, recognizing that it is good to create content on a global level but make sure that it is something that also can be distributed on a local level. The company provides its local teams with information on how the content can be used at the local level but generally steps back and lets them make the final decision on how it can be applied to their local market. In this way, it’s taking the overall global cultural theme and letting the local teams build something new that’s relevant for them. In the end, this brings the entire global team closer together. As he further states,

Points to Remember

• The global culture of an organization drives its success on both a worldwide and local level.

• Key ingredients include a desire to win, energy directed at the customer, employees that think like owners, a team of doers, an environment of individuals and a passion to go beyond the adequate.

• Organizations are often challenged to develop a cohesive culture because of their structural size and the overall complexity of so many geographical cultures and belief systems.

• Communication plays a critical role in disseminating an organization’s culture as well as smoothing out the differences in the team’s varied geographical cultures.

• Distribute global messaging on the local level and empower those in the local markets to adapt the messaging as needed while retaining the overall values that define the global brand.

• A strong cohesive culture in an organization can attract talent, differentiate it in the marketplace, and strengthen its ability to achieve its overall operational strategy.

“ If you listen, react, and prioritize based on what your folks need in the field, you can get a lot of good input that

will turn your ideas into very usable content. — PHIL CLEMENT, CMO, AON Corporation

This helps the organization have a consistent marketing message across the globe with enough local flavor to attract and engage those local audiences. In the process, all parts of the marketing team feel good about being empowered to adapt the overall content but still retain the overall value system that is being disseminated. The result is a cohesive global culture that reacts locally.



GO TO MARKET2

When you want to go to market with your product or service and begin to share content on your website

as well as collect information from your audience, your business immediately becomes responsible for

adhering to the privacy laws related to the personal information of those in your audience.

However, most companies do not necessarily put much thought into the legal ramifications of not having very specific legal notices like terms of service and privacy policies listed on their site. It may not seem like it really matters but it actually really does, no matter the size of your business.

In order to operate in all parts of the world, communicate and exchange information, and leverage available tools like email, companies must be sensitive to the rules and regulations of each country when it comes to protecting any personal information shared within that information exchange. That applies even if you just collect names and email addresses, use browser cookies for traffic analytics, or display Google Ads on your website. All of these actions involve someone else’s data and fall under the guidance of modern data privacy laws found in most countries.

In matters of regulatory compliance, Global CMO of Patrón Spirits International, Lee Applbaum relies on a lot of human capital. “We leverage country-specific agencies to make sure we navigate the regulatory environment smoothly and proactively so we stay compliant.”

For example, France has Loi

Évin, a very stringent set

of advertising regulations

governing the spirits industry. In

essence, you cannot advertise

spirits. Patrón’s agencies

and partners help from a

technology standpoint as well

as a regulatory standpoint.

Before an email is sent, an ad

is placed, or Facebook update

posted, Patrón makes sure it

is complying with the spirits

regulatory environment.

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2 GO TO MARKET

The CMO Solution Guide for Global Brand Leaders, Transcending the Geographic Divide

So Many Rules Constantly Evolving However, the amount of rules and regulations governing data protection

continues to grow and become increasingly complex to the point that

companies are challenged to ensure their compliance in all corners

of the globe. Since 2012, DLA Piper has developed and revised a

handbook that provides an overview of all the main privacy and data

protection laws and regulations across 100 jurisdictions in order to

assist companies with compliance. Each year, it is updated in an

attempt to keep pace with the speed at which these data protection

regulations are changing.

Driven by cultural and trade considerations as well as political and social trends, these changes to global

and local data privacy are becoming more stringent but not necessarily any more standardized. While some

countries like Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong are becoming tougher in their rules, other countries in the

Middle East, Asia, and Latin America are just developing their data privacy regulations. In the EU, data

protection legislation is currently undergoing a significant revision with the aim of reaching a single set of rules

on data protection. Hubertus Devroye shares, “In regard to data protection within our own company, we built a

flexible approach that entrusts our staff with secure layers and ownership. Dow Chemical evolved to this state.

Initially, there was hesitation to share, especially in the areas of business contacts such as existing customers,

stakeholders, influencers, and prospects, which are a tremendous asset.

This asset obviously needs to be protected while simultaneously leveraged for cross marketing and cross selling

opportunities across business units. Dow Chemical architected a house of contacts where each business owns

a room of contacts and each room is protected. At any point in time, businesses can open the rooms to each

other and leverage. But it’s their decision.”

To illustrate, Steve from Agroscience holds the key to contacts for his business unit and makes the call on whether information should be shared with other business units...Hubertus states, “By driving an ownership mentality we drive data protection with adjusted user rights and segmentation to optimize security.”

Challenges and Risks

Along with the push for more standardization will come a higher risk for those not complying with these

data protection laws in the form of fines, legal action, or even jail time. That puts pressure on companies

to ensure that their interactions with their audiences and data collection methods align with all countries

where they operate.

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2 GO TO MARKET


Since standardization is not quite there yet, this means the challenge

still exists for companies to make sure they are keeping current with

the laws in each country. At the very minimum, this means increased

accountability to manage how personal data is processed and controlled.

For some larger businesses with multinational operations, the strategy

has been to designate a data protection officer that is charged with the

responsibility of monitoring data activity to ensure compliance, staying

updated on the latest changes to data protection laws and regulations,

and providing a strategy that addresses tactics, processes, and any

potential risks or crises like data breaches.

Central, Yet Local How companies are dealing with going to market and maintaining a diverse set of privacy rules and regulations

is just as diverse as the laws set forth. For Devroye, there is already a high level of concern related to

intellectual property due to the very nature of the scientific and high tech environment of their business In

addressing their approach to diverse privacy laws, he noted,

At the global level, the focus is on operating on the strictest privacy policy laws enacted and having local

adjustments where necessary. This centralized model to data privacy was the only solution for such an

expansive company because anything else would not have been too convoluted for any progress. With the

centralized model, Dow has been able to maintain efficient processes while still complying with email and

data privacy.

“We have a centrally governed decentralized approach to try and maintain constancy across the globe. However, we still give the local team some flexibility to work because most of our businesses don’t adhere to a one-size-fits-all approach

— HUBERTUS DEVROYE, Head of Marketing and Commercial, Dow Chemical

Local Team Expertise

Other companies have taken a similar global approach but also rely heavily on local expertise. Vencorex

has created both a centralized legal system and local support resources that can be deployed as needed.

According to Sutin Chamulitrat , one needs to look at data privacy on a global and local level.

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Data Privacy Best Practices

No matter what the size of the company, there are best practices approaches that can be enacted to drive compliance across country borders. At the very least, every company that operates in multiple countries should take the time to study and understand the current data privacy laws in each country where they do business.

In doing so, a business can identify areas of similarity and differences in terms of guidance on certain data privacy areas, such as data transfer across country lines, e-commerce guidelines, and internet usage.

This can help shape the type of privacy policy that the company decides to enact, addressing those common areas as part of a global overriding privacy policy for the company and then establishing some local initiatives for those countries where there are specific differences. Having this privacy policy also sends the message that the business takes the need to be compliant very seriously and shows a commitment to data protection and email privacy.

Once this privacy policy has been established, it then needs to be communicated throughout the organization and become a part of the overall training process. This ensures that everyone understands what the policy means and why compliance is so important.

Other best practices include reviewing all third-party contracts and vendors connected with the business to ensure their privacy data policy and commitment aligns so that other’s actions don’t adversely impact the brand reputation. A periodic data security audit undertaken by an outside organization can also help to ensure compliance on the global and local level or even to develop a privacy policy if one is not yet in place.

Points to Remember

• Data privacy rules and regulations have some similarity around the world but are mostly diverse, ranging from non-existent to highly complex. Overall, there is no real standardized approach even within regions and countries.

• Data privacy laws are critical to every organization because those that do not adhere to them face fines, legal action, and even jail time.

• Most organizations are still struggling to develop a way to manage data privacy compliance on a global and local scale, especially when the legal frameworks around the world are constantly evolving.

• Larger organizations take a centralized approach to data privacy rules but still enact local guidance where necessary while others put a lot of responsibility on the local level to provide their expertise and guidance.

• Best practices include learning and understanding the laws in each country where a company does business as well as identifying similarities and differences that can shape the privacy policy.

• Having a person dedicated to overseeing this policy and tracking privacy law changes, ensuring third parties are aligned in privacy policy approach, having an audit conducted by an outside source, and training for all staff members are other best practices that a company can follow to ensure data privacy and email compliance at the global and local levels.

He said, “We have a sales office in many countries but centralize legal aspects into our headquarters in

France. Our legal team examines each country’s requirements not only related to privacy, but they also look at

aspects not only to comply with international laws but also importance to follow the laws wherever our people,

products or services are.”

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RESOURCES3

In a 1999 Harvard Business Review article entitled The Lure of the Global Brand, numerous challenges

were described in terms of the reality of creating and sourcing a global brand. It noted that economies

of scale might prove to be elusive and that it could be cheaper to just provide resources on a local level

to create ads and messaging for the branding efforts. Another challenge was the ability to form a global

brand team that would require a significant amount of resources in order to collect and understand all

the information on each market and then execute on the specific needs of these markets.

Balance Marketing Competencies and Resources with a Clear Plan In order to overcome these challenges it’s key to use a model that has a person or group in charge of the brand and brand strategy plan who can create a clear plan for execution and management of that brand on a global and local basis. From there, it’s a five-step process that shares resources across global and local branding efforts in a measured way:

Keep in mind this is from an article that is nearly 20 years old yet still highly relevant today.

1. ANALYZE CUSTOMERS, COMPETITORS, AND BRAND PERCEPTION: A global company must understand their customers and competition on a local level and determine how many similarities and differences exist between markets to shape where global and local branding tactics are enacted. It’s also good to have completed a brand audit to understand perception on a local level to see how much can be then communicated on a global level about the brand. This will help maximize available resources and allocate specific amounts of resources where necessary to help with the brand efforts.

2. DON’T FOCUS ON PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES: Product attributes are about functional benefits, but a brand’s real power lies in its emotional benefits and how these engage the audience. Therefore, it’s important to look at the brand’s personality, user imagery, and the various intangibles that align with these emotional benefits. This also should include looking at the symbolism used and how the audiences in various markets perceive this symbolism.

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3. COMMUNICATE THE BRAND’S IDENTITY: Have a process that defines what the brand should stand for and use this as the global point of reference for all tactics and resource allocation to determine if they fit the brand’s core identity.

4. USE BRAND EQUITY MEASUREMENT AND GOALS: For all resource allocation, measurement and goals must be the basis for all decisions to determine where best to provide resources on a local level and incentivize local market managers to meet goals and metrics in order to achieve a greater resource allocation.

5. TIE GLOBAL BRAND STRATEGIES TO COUNTRY OR MARKET BRAND STRATEGIES: There needs to be a mechanism in place for bringing these together, starting with a global brand strategy and having the country or market brand strategies follow from there. The country or market strategies can add elements that modify the identity but do not take away from the overall brand identity.

There are many good examples of how global companies are taking these five processes and making

them into a global and local branding strategy that allocates resources in a way that maximizes the

return on all levels:

DOW CHEMICAL: “We have made the local teams the satellite or the broadcasters of the central message in their local markets. It works as a tremendously motivating factor because the local teams feel that they are empowered to actually drive local growth rather than having to ask permission. As long as they stay consistent in terms of brand policy and core values, they have the freedom to do what is right for their markets and the industries they are in. We have seen tremendous benefits from that. It accelerates growth, is motivational, and accelerates experimentation, innovation, and creativity.”

DEMANDJUMP: “The centers of excellence in local markets provide the platform to invest in top-tier talent across the brand’s footprint and in markets that may not have reached a critical mass to afford such talent.”

VENCOREX: “Once the marketing objectives and strategy were formulated globally, the deployment of strategy is then translated into actions globally and locally. That is how the company and product identities are positioned, which usually involve all related aspects such as technology, products, services and communication. An internal matrix organization was created to expedite and control the milestones of the objectives. Global directions as well as local actions are well balanced and implemented seamlessly within the team and the market”

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Empowerment Strategies for Building Relationships with Customers in Different Regions Besides empowering local teams to make decisions about how to enact and manage branding strategies, it is also important that companies let local teams handle how relationships are built with customers in their areas of the world. According to Julie Lyle, it’s important to not push the local teams to build cross-border relationships unless they make sense for the buying journey of their own customers.

However, she does note that she encourages cross-market collaboration and consumer insight sharing because this is a way to enhance the problem solving process. It has also been responsible for creating a first-mover advantage when teams learn from colleagues in other locales and then can implement new products or practices more quickly than the competition.

Other global organizations continue to focus on the idea that business truly is global and local. For Sutin Chamulitrat, this means that, while the overall business he is in is global in nature, local players do get more involved in local industry development due to specific market environment.

Points to Remember

• The challenges with a global brand include economies of scale and the ability to form a global brand team.

• It’s vital to delegate a person charged with being the global brand manager and have them create a clear plan.

• Resources can be balanced more effectively with greater return on investment for branding through analyzing customers and competitors, surveying the brand perception, going deeper than just focusing on product attributes, communicating the brand identity, using brand equity measurement and goals, and tying global brand strategies to country or market brand strategies.

• It is also important that companies let local teams handle how relationships are built with customers in their areas of the world, in order to further enhance the overall brand strategy.

“ In some regions, it is still very important to conduct the business with the customers in traditional way with face to face interactions, while the others

might be of less extent of that. We are balancing both by going to see them as needed and also using the technology on CRM and business intelligence smartly in order to get the most effectively sourced management possible. We have to be easy to do business with as much as we can.

— SUTIN CHAMULITRAT, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Vencorex

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TECHNOLOGY4

According to Branding Business, “Globalization, technology, increasing product parity and communication overload have put increasing focus and attention on the power of global brands to transcend national borders and languages in their universal appeal and recognition.”

At the same time, these global brands must maintain three pillars of success, including a high degree of brand consistency in terms of what they promise and actually deliver; a meaningful difference that sets them apart and offers the type of value that customer can relate to; and consistent brand equity measurement that establishes return on investment for its ability to deliver top-of-mind awareness, an overall opinion, attractive brand image attributes, and perceptions of product/service performance. Technology has impacted all aspects of how a business operates and executes, including all branding activities. When it comes to branding, technology is considered a way of engaging with the audience rather than a specific channel. That’s because it’s a process that goes beyond how people do things and elevates it to a way for people to think differently. With perceptions changing among audience members, it provides a new opportunity for marketers to engage with them and create opportunities for interaction.

Technology Has Changed Expectations and Empowerment However, as Branding Strategy Insider explains, now that consumers

have this ability to interact with marketing, they expect it to be available

everywhere. This includes from the retail location to the customer

service experience to media content, all of which were previously

considered to be very low-tech points of contact. Further expectations

that have been initiated by technology are also impacting marketing and

branding efforts.

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As part of this, the shift has been to online mobile portability and

movement away from brick-and mortar experiences. Video has

replaced brochures in terms of content effectiveness and migrated

marketers away from text-heavy content. Other expectations include

speed in which audiences expect messages in real time and nearly

instantaneous responses from brands when feedback is provided.

THE FACT IS TECHNOLOGY HAS EMPOWERED AUDIENCES ALL OVER THE WORLD, CHANGING THE DYNAMIC FOR COMPANIES AND HOW THEY MARKET AND BRAND THEMSELVES.

Numerous brands that operate on a global scale have experienced this shift related to technology,

reflecting the thoughts of Brand Strategy Insider in terms of people’s perceptions changing more so than

a direct impact from technology. As Hubertus Devroye states, “Technology enables, measures, improves

and innovates the way we work but also impacts traditional business processes. Initially, some may push

back a little bit, but once people are convinced about the efficiencies, positive improvements and overall

experience, there is an endless amount of opportunity. It’s a learning curve. In the last few years, we

have experimented market-by-market, country-by-country, we do things differently.”

In many ways, futurist Douglas Rushkoff and author of Program or Be Programmed, agrees in terms

of the shift in consumer perspectives about brands due to technology’s impact. The first function of a

brand has always been to humanize the factory-produced products, while the second function was to

create accountability in which a person knew what they were getting from a product because it stood

for certain values. Today, branding has taken on an even deeper and more profound meaning in relation

to the authenticity and value it represents, including where it came from, what went into making it, and

who made it.

Essentially, a brand must now deliver considerably more information for consumers to become engaged

with and loyal to it. There continues to be an interrelated relationship though in terms of culture in which

brand is culture, and culture is brand, according to William C. Taylor, Co-Founder of Fast Company who

described it this way in a 2010 article for the Harvard Business Review.

While consumers want something they can identify from a brand that reinforces their culture, they also want the brand to tell them what that culture looks like. Technology has both created and allowed this interrelationship to occur.

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Global Technology Platforms with Market-by-Market Delivery

Theodore Levitt, a Harvard Business School professor, was one of the first to really study the idea of what has now become “glocalization.”

In The Globalization of Markets, he stated that a worldwide market for

homogeneous products and services had evolved. Companies attempted

to take a global approach with technology, production, and organization

while tailoring communications, distribution, and selling practices to

local consumer requirements.

Even with these “glocal” strategies, global brands still exist because there is a desire by audiences

for brands that others have versus just wanting their local brands. Technology and access to brand

information has only furthered this desire for the global brand. The result has been a need to manage

the distinctiveness and features as well as the global characteristics of their brands. This helps to

improve the marketing and branding of these products in foreign markets that are quickly becoming the

largest consumer of these global brands.

Devroye noted that while a technology platform can work on a global basis for the organization, what

changes and becomes a market-by-market effort is related to the way they reach out to the audience or

the way they listen to the audience. He related an example of working with his team in East Africa: “We

struggled to actually get email through so they’ve been playing around with a combination of different

channels. I think the technology platform allows you the flexibility and the multi-channel approach, but

when you don’t know, you need to experiment with that.”

Devroye also explained that, when it comes to technology, there is still a need to have varied

combinations of technology and human touch points also on a market-by-market basis. While some

markets may prefer that technology be in place to speed up information delivery and digestion, others

seek more of a human component to the process.

Technology Delivers Global Marketing and Branding Benefits Global organizations have realized that technology can provide many marketing and branding benefits that they can leverage to further achieve their specific objectives in this area.

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For example, Julie Lyle believes technology has enabled tracking, measurement, and best practices sharing.

She explains “Different teams in different time zones are able to collaborate seamlessly, share tips and

tools, document best practices, and build global snapshots rolled up from local key performance indicators

(KPIs) among other things. Technology has added tools that can address the inherent complexity in the

marketing mix, helping marketers to manage data privacy and compliance tracking, while facilitating consumer

engagement more effectively.”

Other companies have found similar success managing their global branding efforts via technology. For

example, Phil Clement noted that global brand surveys help to assess how the brand is doing in a particular

area, how much loyalty it’s generating, and how likely people are to want to work with you before they hear

your proposal. He has also found that the net promoter score works well on a global basis because the data

can be analyzed on a central basis.

The result has been the ability to share best practices with other parts of the organization. Clement states,

“We’ve created a lot of value around a few core sets of metrics that allow people to understand the success

in Holland in a way that can translate to whether or not it would be successful in Brazil. However, marketing

equivalency as well as how to determine the value of a lead or how to describe a qualified lead are tough to do

as a global standard and require you to be responsive to the local geographic description of these things if you

want to be effective.”

Other organizations continue to use a combination of tools for marketing and branding, recognizing that some are more effective on a global basis while others serve local intelligence. Sutin Chamulitrat says, “We have the CRM and business intelligence system while in the past it was as simple as a spreadsheet practice. Once we set up the objectives either quantitative or qualitative, we monitor them. For sales, the measuring metric is obvious. You have typically a percentage of the sales, an increase of the margin or the market share, and customer satisfaction percentage. Internal strategy for long-term growth such as Innovation and New Products development progress were also measured. That tells what we need on a global and local basis and how those would support our strategy.”

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The brand becomes the promise a company makes to its customer base as well as its prospective audience. These companies have

provided some significant advice on how they have leveraged

technology, in combination with the human element, to continue

fulfilling this promise on a global scale as well as a market-by-market,

country-by-country basis in order to continue benefitting from the

brand perception their audience has of their organization.

Then there’s a brand like Patrón Spirits International, whose Global

CMO Lee Applbaum often gets asked what’s the driving force behind what

they’re doing with technology and innovation. For example they recently

launched an online mixology portal supported by the Amazon Echo

platform, where consumers can actually engage with Amazon Echo and

have Echo make cocktail recommendations based on lifestyle and taste

preferences. He identified two reasons behind their decisions on how to

use technology. “One is it’s important because we need to cohabitate with

our consumers. So, if our consumer is using social and digital and things

like Amazon Echo or VR or whatever, we need to cohabitate with them.”

THE SECOND REASON, HE SAYS SUCCINCTLY IS BECAUSE “INNOVATION IS VERY MUCH IN OUR DNA.”

“We do that through things like product innovation in tequila and in spirits,

but also I think the things that we're doing with Oculus, with Echo, with

social and digital media helps signal that as a brand, innovation in all its

forms are critical to us as an enterprise. It's the way we think and the way we

act, and technology is just one expression of the way in which we embrace

and hold dear this idea of innovation.”

Points to Remember

• When it comes to branding, technology is considered a way of engaging with the audience rather than a specific channel.

• Technology has changed consumer expectations so that they now expect to interact anywhere and at any time as long as it’s instantaneous.

• Technology is helping many global organizations address marketing and brand challenges by providing new ways to deliver messaging on a customized basis as well as engage with the audience and assess impact of the brand on an audience.

• Companies need to determine how their brand is perceived on a market-by-market basis in order to provide the right messaging, which is something that technology cannot do for them.

• The global companies mentioned here illustrate that some uses of technology can help spread the information and segment it into various markets, including quickly sharing best practices while still providing individualized capabilities to craft individual brand messages that reflect the perception of a local market.

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The CMO Solution Guide for Global Brand Leaders: Key Insights Into People, Process, and Technology 21

5 BRANDING


A contemporary feel that is always on

trend so that the audience can relate to

the brand and feels comfortable with that

they are offering in terms of relevance.

BRANDING5

A CNBC article on 7 Keys to Building a Billion-Dollar Global Brand noted some key strategies that are

important for articulating and creating a global brand image and presence across different languages

and cultures. The seven keys included:

A highly compelling brand promise

that is attractive and valuable to the

audience that is actually delivered as

promised, and that can delight the

customer with a memorable experience.

A powerful and transformational insight that reaches the hearts and minds of its audience and moves them to take action.

Closure power that can convince the audience to choose them every time.

A consistent brand promise that is continually renewed so that the audience can feel comfortable and confident that the brand will continue to deliver when they need it to the most.

A cultural relevance within a global context that engages the audience’s desire to be in touch with both their local culture but to also share in those attributes of the larger global culture.

A commitment to a higher purpose that

shows the company values the idea of

helping society and offering something

that does them and the environment well.

This illustrates that the global brand has become something that must do more than ever before to win its audience over. While it may seem like a lot of work and require a lot of money to become that billion-dollar brand, it doesn’t actually have to be that exhausting on resources or talent.

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5 BRANDING


Case Studies of Global Brand Image Creation Some of today’s biggest global brands have used a wide range of tactics to create their own global brand image. For example, Hubertus Devroye says, “One consistent uniform global brand message is incredibly important, not only for what we stand for as a company from a corporate point of view, but at the same time also our brand message is product reliability wherever you are in the globe. When people see the Dow brand, they know that we stand for reliable manufacturing and product quality.”

To achieve this, the Dow Chemical team keeps certain messages central in order to truly have a global brand image and presence despite different languages and cultures.

Meanwhile for other brands, such as Patrón Spirits International, it can be an educational exercise of sorts.

“We have a number of markets that have no idea what ultra premium tequila really is, and that’s an interesting

set of challenges,” says Lee Applbaum. He uses the UK as one example, where tequila is often thought as

being just “a drink with a worm in the bottom of the glass.” He says for UK consumers it’s about changing

misperceptions around tequila and about the very formative days of creating tequila as this very aspirational

luxury spirit and all that goes along with it.

Comparing and contrasting the UK market with the US, Applbaum says the brand message to the US market

is different because the US has accepted that tequila can be very artisanal, it can be very handcrafted and

can be a very fine spirit, so now we’ve kind of moved on further in the evolutionary cycle, talking about the

more sophisticated elements of tequila.

“So, we’re dealing with all these different variables such as cultural, regulatory, and then there’s sort of the

evolution in their understanding and sophistication around the spirit itself,” he says. “And all of those play

into the very different ways in which we advertise, communicate, engage with consumers around the spirit.

It’s not either/or, it’s not binary, meaning we’re not just talking about it as a stylish spirit or a substance

based spirit, but we are very thoughtful.”

Julie Lyle focuses on the idea of relevance as an integral ingredient in the brand story. She explains, “If you

believe that a brand’s value is reliant upon the customer’s perception of your product or service, then you

must accept the importance of relevance. Relevance is about communicating what you stand for as a brand

in a way that resonates and has meaning and value for a consumer. The local needs, tastes, and perspectives

of consumers have to be part of this equation in order for this to happen. The role of the CMO is to

understand exactly what the brand represents, and then find relevant ways to tell that brand story in different

markets in which the brand lives, without straying from the brand’s core principles.”

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5 BRANDING


For companies like Vencorex, the development of the global brand involves

the dimensions of corporate branding and product branding. Despite being

founded in 2012, their products have been known on a global scale for

nearly 30 years. “We are an industrial B-to-B business so the expectations

are definitely different from consumer market,” says Sutin Chamulitrat, Vice

President of Global Marketing and Sales.

As Chamulitrat explains: “We’ve tied product branding very tightly with our product positioning. In the

challenging competitive environment, it is important for the industry to understand why a good quality product

with innovative offering, as well as superior service can support growth. The business managers develop the

means to communicate company values with specific offering in the market place. Once the alignment happens,

the brand identity occurred.”

Starns says she has worked on a variety of brands always looking for that emotional connection. “In the

education space, this emotional piece with Pearson is really baked in. For us, it’s helping our different markets,

whether we are doing English language, private schooling in Brazil or China, or K12 learning in the United

States, or higher education, physical or online and blended services, all comes back to putting the learner, the

student at the heart of it.”

Despite having excellent strategies for developing a global brand, great challenges are still there for these

companies. However, they have been able to recognize those challenges and fight through them to build a

transparent global brand image. Julie Lyle of DemandJump notes, “The greatest challenge is finding the right

message and medium for telling the brand story in a way that is meaningful to local consumers and that does

not compromise the core tenets of the brand.”

Beating Great Challenges and Building a Transparent Global Brand Image

Applbaum acknowledges that while some of the issues he deals with are endemic to alcohol beverages and are fairly black and white, there are cultural implications that he believes every brand has to deal with

“ I don’t care if you’re Coca-Cola, or if you’re an apparel brand, or a technology brand, you’re going to have to deal with the understanding of cultural nuances.

— LEE APPLBAUM, Global Chief Marketing Officer, The Patron Spirits Company

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5 BRANDING


Chamulitrat believes the biggest challenge would be to manage the difference. “The products adoption has demonstrated different directions from region to region. The presence of global key customers facilitate global technology synchronization. However different value propositions on products, technology and services are still foreseen, the key message to the market will be global, however in details might have to adapt to meet local industry demand. That is how the market segmentation is

becoming very important.”

Points to Remember

• A global brand has become something that must do more than ever before to win its audience over.

• Seven keys for a highly successful global brand include a highly compelling brand promise, a powerful and transformational insight, closure power, a contemporary feel that is still on trend, a consistent brand promise, a cultural relevance, and a commitment to a higher purpose.

• Everything that a global company does must be aligned with the global brand image.

• Relevance is one of the most important ingredients in creating a global brand.

• A consistent, uniform global brand message is incredibly important.

• Challenges remain in aligning local needs, development, and understanding with the overall global brand identity, but companies continue to do so by segmenting the audience and offering specific messaging where necessary in addition to the overall global brand message.

• Look for universal similarities but still acknowledge local nuances as well as study your customers and the competition to understand behaviors and what approaches work best.

• Promote your global brand online but continue to include the local flavor in those efforts.

COMBINE UNIVERSAL SIMILARITIES that hold meaning for your entire audience despite varied cultures, gender, race, and religion. Concepts like love, inspiration, hope, friendship, and social good are places where universal similarities can be found. This will

bring all your customers together on a global basis by giving them something to each identity with from your brand and its attributes.

CONTINUE TO STUDY YOUR MARKET AND COMPETITION ACROSS ALL COUNTRIES where you do business in order to see how this will impact your market positioning and brand identity. There will be different consumer behavior or preferences in response to your brand but there will also be similarities to identify. Understand how

your competition also approaches the market and then examine the response they get from their actions. This will tell you a lot about what to do but also about what not to do that can shape your overall approach to a successful global brand.

PROMOTE YOUR BRAND ONLINE because this is where the majority of your audience is now engaging with companies as well as each other and the media. Leverage the social media networks available to promote the products and reach out to your audience. You can also use this as a platform to get to know them better. This

platform can also be a valuable way to get more people to share your brand with others that they know may be interested in what your brand represents, thereby reaching so many more prospects with this global brand identity.

DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR DOMESTIC MARKETING AND BRANDING STRATEGIES. It’s easy to become engrossed in the

idea of the global brand, but it doesn’t mean that your local marketing and branding efforts should suffer. Localization is a vital aspect of all your marketing and branding efforts. This includes ensuring that

you market your brand according to the local language and cultural trends in that particular market. You will need to collaborate with your local teams who are more likely to be experts in knowing the best approach to the domestic marketing and branding efforts in their market or country. Always include multiple languages on your website and social media platforms as well to invite these local customers and prospects into your online world of brand engagement.

There are some overall points that can help address these challenges while continuing to create that transparent global brand image:

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6 CONCLUSION


CONCLUSION6

Needless to say there are a great number of aspects that a CMO must deal with when it comes to

marketing a brand globally. As previously stated, there is no difference between marketing a global

brand and marketing a brand, globally. Every brand is truly global now thanks to the internet. That’s why

there is an enormous amount of complexity that a CMO needs to address.

From all the laws, rules, and regulations that can vary so differently from one part of the world to the next—to all the cultural differences amongst not only the consumer but, the marketing team as well—to the technology they rely heavily on. These are just some of the challenges Modern Marketers face when they cross borders.

IT’S A LOT EASIER SAID THAN DONE, TO SAY THE LEAST.

Beating the challenges and delivering the best of your brand requires focusing on how people, process,

and technology can work locally in global harmony. Mix all this together yet still deliver the same, basic

core brand message to your global audience.


ABOUT THE AUTHORSteve Olenski is a senior writer/content strategist for Oracle Marketing Cloud. He is also a highly-respected journalist contributing to the Forbes CMO

Network for nearly 10 years over which time he has interviewed hundreds of

CMOs and C-level leaders from brands around the world of all sizes. Dwight

Greisman, former CMO of Forrester calls Steve “One of the most influential bloggers and writers in the world of marketing, advertising, and branding.”

ABOUT THE CMO CLUBThe CMO Club is the world’s most engaged and inspired community of senior

marketing executives who help each other solve their biggest challenges,

within a candid, trusted and sharing environment. Collaboration fueled by

inspiring events and within the members-only Digital Solutions Clubhouse

raises the standard for what is required to be a successful chief marketing

officer. With more than 800 members and a no-vendor selling policy, The

CMO Club is the go-to center for today’s senior marketer for peer-based

personal and career success support. For more details on membership or

becoming a thought leadership partner, please visit thecmoclub.com.

ABOUT ORACLE MARKETING CLOUDModern marketers choose Oracle Marketing Cloud solutions to create ideal

customers and increase revenue. Integrated information from cross-channel,

content and social marketing with data management and activation along

with hundreds of app and data partners enables them to target, engage,

convert, analyze and use award-winning marketing technology and expertise

to deliver personalized customer experiences at every interaction. Visit

oracle.com/marketingcloud.

http://www.thecmoclub.com

http://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud

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